Ever thought your Palm could make people say cheese? Your PDA could be getting smiles in no time with the Kodak PalmPix Camera, a clip-on unit that turns most Palm handhelds into a digital camera. Although the 24-bit colour images can be a bit fuzzy, this highly pocketable device is a handy way for Palm users to take photos on the go.
The PalmPix is both small and simple, packing a lens and a battery compartment for two AAAs into a unit that's tinier than a pack of cigarettes and about as light. It snaps onto the bottom of any Palm III series handheld. (A $65 dock adaptor provides compatibility with the Palm V series.) Once you've installed the PalmPix applet on your Palm, you're ready to shoot. The handheld's screen serves as the viewfinder, and its memory stores the pictures.
The camera offers two resolutions: 320 x 240 or 640 x 480. In high-resolution mode, the press of a Palm button also activates a 2x digital zoom. Each high-resolution photo consumes about 100K, so if your Palm has only 2MB of RAM, you'll feel the memory crunch after just a few snaps. Fortunately, the PalmPix software tells you how many pictures you can take, based on resolution and the amount of available memory.
The software lets you select which photos to transfer to your PC when you synchronise, and you can choose BMP or JPEG format. Kodak supplies NewSoft's Presto Mr. Photo for editing, e-mailing, and printing pictures.
In our tests, the PalmPix produced fairly clear and colourful pictures at 640 x 480, but the lower resolution was too blurry to be useful. The camera lacks a flash, and the Palm's low-resolution grey-scale screen makes a terrible viewfinder. (Even the Palm IIIc's colour screen displays previews in grey scale.) Accurately framing a shot is challenging at best, and virtually impossible in dimly lit areas.
Nevertheless, the Kodak PalmPix Camera delivers images that are more than sufficient for e-mailing to friends, and its small size makes it more than handy. If you're a photo-minded Palm user, you'd do well to consider this clever accessory.
Kodak PalmPix Camera
Company: Kodak
Ph: 1300 130 674; Fax: 03 9353 2092
Price: AU$329.
Rating: 3 Star
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